CHAPTER XVII


CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE TEMPERANCE

In the indulgence of the appetites is a manifest necessity for health and
efficiency-temperance in work and play, in eating and drinking, in
novel reading and theater going, in whatever activity desire may suggest.
But two appetites stand on a different footing from the others, and
demand more than temperance. The love of alcohol and the other narcotics,
being, as we have seen, a pathological and highly dangerous appetite,
productive of scarcely any real good, must be completely rooted out
of human nature, as it readily can be, to the great advantage of mankind.
The other great appetite, that of sex, cannot be treated so cavalierly;
to eradicate it or deny its fulfillment would be to put a speedy end
to the human race. The solution of the problems of sex is therefore
not so simple, the remedying of the evils of which sexual passion is
the source not so feasible. On the one hand, we have to recognize the
sex instinct as normal and necessary, the source of the keenest, and,
indirectly, of some of the most lasting, pleasures of life; the denial
of its enticements to the extent which our Christian ideal demands
provokes perennial resentment and rebellion. On the other hand, we
are confronted by the incalculable evils which unrestrained lust
produces, and forced to admit the imperious necessity of some strictly
repressive code. To many, the gravest dangers in life lie here; the
sex instinct is the great rebel, promising a glorious liberty, a melting
of the barriers between human bodies and souls, an ecstasy of mutual
happiness that nothing else can offer. Yet beyond these transient
excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished
childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our